Struggling

I went to my brother's graduation this past Friday up in Minneapolis, but this story starts much earlier. For those who don't know, I offer a brief history: my parents split when I was about 7, didn't finalize the divorce until I was 14, and I haven't seen my father, his wife, or the older of my two half-sisters since just after I turned 16. I haven't seen my older brother since I was about 19 and have never seen my younger half sister.

My father and his wife hated my mother with a passion, particularly the wife. Our father never seemed to care for us, at least not 1/10th as much as he cared about work. We'd be taken to construction sites all day and left completely to our own designs from 6am to whenever he got done, which was often after 8pm and sometimes after midnight, or left with his wife, who tried to upset us at every possible turn. He had tons of money, but didn't pay child support regularly and almost never paid alimony. My mom kept giving up part of the settlement to which she was entitled in efforts to make visitation better for us. He'd agree to the terms, change for a month, and then we'd be back where we started, save that she'd be poorer. Worse still, both my younger brother and older sister were physically abused in addition to the neglect and other wrongs we endured.

And his effect has endured. Without money, I wasn't able to go to the college I wanted (and was accepted into). Without money, my sister and I had to contribute a large share of our small incomes just to help the family make ends meet. And the stress of all those years of fighting has cost my mother her health and robbed her of all will to stand up for herself, even when she is perfectly in the right.

I thought I had forgiven my father. After nearly 13 years without seeing him, I thought I'd put the past behind me.

A few years ago, my younger brother decided to make contact with him and they have patched things up. He's even going to move in with my father now and work for him. My father was at my brother's graduation and it was only when we got to the ceremony that I realized how uptight I was and how the feelings of hurt and anger and, yes, even rage, boiled up inside me. I felt like a caged animal. Part of me wanted to face him, now that I'm a man, and knock him flat to the ground for all he'd done to us as a family. Part of me wanted to let him proffer a hug or handshake and then spit on him and walk away. Part of me wanted to yell at him and make him feel two inches tall (and the second inch only because I would have had to watch my language in church)...And part of me wanted to hide from him, scared of him still.

The point in all this is that I haven't gotten over my past. I never can be rid of it, and I know that God allowed it all to happen for a reason. Maybe it's so that if I can ever get over it, I will be able to forgive just about anything. There are only two or three hurts I can think of that would be greater than that, and I pray to God they never happen. But no matter what happens, I know that I can't continue to hold on to this. I don't know what God's plan is for me and my father reconciling, if that ever happens or not, but I know that I both have to forgive my father and his wife and let God help me finally deal with all the hurt that's caused.

My best analogy for counseling is dentistry. In dentistry, you have to drill out the cavity completely before you fill it. If you fill it first before you get to the root of the problem (and often the root of the tooth), you will only rot away the filling and the rest of the tooth from the inside. The outside might look fine for years, but the problem will eventually come back and, when it does, you'll see that it has been eating away for years and is even bigger and harder to get rid of than before.

And that seems to be what has happened with me. To an extent, I have gotten better. I'm no longer the suicidal, always snarling and whining uber-mess I was in college. I don't feel utterly hopeless most of the time like I used to. I now feel my life has a purpose and I can trust God. Yet...I know that I am so far from where I need to be, simply because I have never really dealt with my cavity, so to speak.

The purpose of sharing all this with you is not merely to tell you what is going on with me. Those finding this site through Google or another search engine don't even know me. No, the purpose is to ask you to dig into your life, really dig down deep, with the help of God, a good Christian counselor if you can, and your close Christian friends, and get to the root of whatever problem is most harmful to you. It will likely have spawned an assortment of other issues in your life. Look back to moments you remember most, particularly as a child, that shaped your character for the worse. Ask the hardest questions you can of yourself and be honest. You can't lie to God and it's stupid to lie to yourself.

Well, I have some soul-searching and praying to do. I hope you do, too.